


Christmas Balls

by serenelystrange



Category: Leverage
Genre: Companionable Snark, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Leverage Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2019, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenelystrange/pseuds/serenelystrange
Summary: Parker challenges her boys to an ornament finding competition. Snark and fluff ensue!Only rated T for some slight suggestive situations. I hope you like it, Miri!
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 14
Kudos: 34
Collections: Leverage Secret Santa Exchange (Mod Gifts)





	Christmas Balls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiriRainbowitz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriRainbowitz/gifts).



“It’ll be fun!”

Eliot and Hardison turn in eerie synchronicity to look at Parker. Eliot’s eyebrows are raised in doubt, while Hardison’s mouth curves up in an anticipatory smirk.

“What are you planning?” Eliot asks, even though he knows he’s going to end up doing whatever she wants anyway.

“A day of magical Christmas-adjacent fun,” Parker says, “obviously.”

“Obviously,” Hardison repeats, full on grinning now. Parker only ever hedges when it’s an idea that is going to annoy Eliot SO much.

Parker just comes over to where Eliot and Hardison are sitting on the couch and wedges herself between them, glaring when Eliot swats her butt when she half sits on him.

“You’re the one who sat her bony ass on me instead of the perfectly comfortable couch!” he says, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at her like a child.

“You love my ass,” Parker says, feigning a prim and proper posture before cracking and snickering.

She leans back against the couch and puts a hand on one of each of the guys’ knees, flexing her strong fingers into them tightly.

“Ball hunt,” she says, pausing for dramatic effect as both men instinctively cringe. “Christmas ornament ball hunt!”

Eliot groans, before leaning back and dropping his head onto the back of the couch and turning slightly to glare at Parker.

“This is a terrible idea.”

“Lie,” Parker retorts. “It’s an excellent idea. Hardison?”

Hardison leans back to match his lovers and grins.

“It’s a truly terrible idea. We should absolutely do it.”

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot curses, while Parker claps in delight.

“Yes!” She exclaims. “This will be even better than the Easter egg hunt!”

“We don’t talk about that Easter,” Eliot says, darkly.

“I don’t know,” Hardison drawls in his very best Eliot impersonation. “I think the ears suited you. And the little shorts.”

“Easter hams on Easter gams,” Parker agrees sagely.

“We don’t talk about it!” Eliot says sternly.

“Maybe _you_ don’t,” Hardison snickers. “But you will never find all my copies of the pictures.”

Eliot just groans and closes his eyes.

“I can kill you in at least 17 ways without even opening my eyes,” he says, but there’s no heat to it.

“Promise?” Hardison asks, just to watch with glee as Eliot’s cheeks turn a fun shade of pink.

“Six years and he still blushes,” Parker says, poking at one of Eliot’s cheeks to watch it go pale and then pink again.

“Why do I love you assholes?” Eliot grumbles.

“He loooooves us” Hardison says, reaching an arm around Parker in order to poke at Eliot’s other cheek.

“I changed my mind,” Eliot says. “I hate you both.”

“Lie, again,” Parker says sweetly, reaching over to press a kiss on Eliot’s pink cheek.

Eliot says nothing, but leans into her touch, so she calls it a win.

“Rules!” Parker yells out from the top of couch, where she’s balanced precariously on the balls of her feet.

“Please get down,” Hardison says mildly, knowing she will do no such thing until she damn well pleases.

“I don’t want to spend Christmas in the ER because you cracked your head open,” Eliot adds.

“And also, it’d be cool if you weren’t terribly injured,” Hardison says, glaring at Eliot.

“Blood is a bitch to clean!” Eliot says defensively.

“I won’t fall,” Parker says, dismissively. “Now, rules!”

“Rules,” Eliot agrees, if only to get this over with.

“Number one,” Parker says, now walking along the couch like a balance beam, heel to toe. “No technology!”

“Yeah, Hardison,” Eliot drawls, “No cameras, no gps, no other weird Star Trek crap I know you have hiding in that hoodie.”

“Excuse you,” Hardison says, “this a premium men’s cashmere cardigan. Hoodie, my ass.”

“It doesn’t have a hood,” Parker agrees. She’s now balancing on one leg on the back of the couch, the other tucked up against her knee in an elegant yoga pose.

“Can we at least use flashlights?” Eliot asks, ignoring Hardison still-affronted face about his sweater.

Parker pauses for a long moment, thinking.

“I’ll allow it,” she says finally, nodding once. “But only real flashlights. No phones.”

“Fine,” Hardison grumbles, before looking over to Eliot with hopeful eyes.

Eliot’s already handing over a compact flashlight to Hardison, a smug smirk on his face.

“Shove it, cowboy,” Hardison snarks as he grabs the flashlight.

“Later,” Eliot says, with a wide grin.

“Rule two!” Parker says, bringing them back on track. “No physical injuries.”

“Obviously,” Eliot says, “I wouldn’t stoop so low. It’d be too easy.”

“That one was mostly for Hardison,” Parker concedes, gesturing to Hardison in an exaggerated motion.

“I’d only injure him a little,” Hardison grumbles. “Nothing he couldn’t walk off!”

“Rule three!” Parker says, cutting off whatever retort Eliot had begun to say. “Simply find the most Christmas balls before the one hour timer goes off, and the winner gets to open the Big Shiny Box.”

She points toward the kitchen tables, where there is in fact a Big Shiny Box, wrapped in a red velvet bow.

“Is it a bomb?” Eliot asks, dubiously.

Parker sighs. “It’s not May, Eliot. Everyone knows peak bomb building weather is mid-May.”

“I’m…” Eliot begins, before shaking his head. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Hardison says.

“Get ready!” Parker calls out. “All the balls are within this apartment, nothing outside or on the roof. Timer starts when my feet hit the floor!”

“What are you…” Hardison tries to ask, but Parker is already moving in an impressive catapult from the couch and executing a perfect flip mid-air.

Her feet hit the floor with a deceptively soft thud and she holds up her phone with glee.

“Showtime!”

The first dozen or so ornaments are easy to find. Eliot finds several in the freezer, wrapped in tinfoil like meat. Hardison finds one inside his favorite coffee mug, almost blended in to the deep green of the ceramic. They both find some already on the Christmas tree, buried deep within the branches. Hardison even finds the ones Parker had hidden up in the rafters of the ceiling.

“Ten minutes!” Parker calls out, from her seat on top of the kitchen table, where she’d been observing the whole process.

“Damn it!” Eliot calls back from the bedroom, where’s he’s half wedged under the bed with his flashlight.

“How many balls are left?” Hardison asks from the bathroom. He’s looking at the toilet tank dubiously, not wanting to have to stick his hands into the cold and gross water to look.

“Just two!” Parker yells back.

They hear her tapping out a nonsense rhythm with her fingers on the Big Shiny Box.

Eliot finishes searching the bedroom and crosses paths with Hardison as he comes out of the hallway bathroom, drying his just washed hands on a paper towel.

“Toilet tank?” He asks, smirking.

“Empty,” Hardison replies, wrinkling his nose. “Under the bed?”

“Clean as a whistle,” Eliot says. “We’re tied. Whoever finds the last two wins.”

“Or we each find one and stay tied,” Hardison says.

“You think she’d let a tie happen?” Eliot says, dropping his voice to a whisper and grinning wryly.

Hardison snorts. “Not a chance,” he says.

They split up again and continue searching.

After what feels like only a minute later Parker is yelling out again.

“One minute!” she warns. “Find those balls!”

“We’ve looked everywhere!” Hardison says with a hint of exasperation. “I put my hand in the dang toilet tank!”

“Not everywhere,” Parker says, shrugging slightly. “30 seconds.”

“Wait a minute,” Eliot says, eyeing her critically. “You weren’t wearing a push-up bra before.”

“Nope,” Parker agrees, mildly. “20 seconds.”

Eliot grins and stalks over to her, skimming his fingers under the hem of her shirt where it meets her jeans.

“May I?” he asks, grin growing when he sees the glare in Parker’s eyes.

“You may,” she says, sighing in defeat. “Ten seconds.”

“Only need three,” Eliot says, dragging his fingers up under Parker’s bralette and pulling the final two (thankfully plastic) Christmas ornaments out from where they were tucked under her breasts.

“I win,” he says, voice dropping into a rough whisper.

The timer goes off on Parker’s phone, but she ignores it in favor of pulling Eliot into rough kiss.

“Good game,” Hardison says from behind Eliot somewhere, watching the proceedings with interest.

After another few moments, Eliot pulls himself away from Parker to reap his winnings.

“So what’s in the box?” he asks, reaching for the ribbon to untie it.

“Our Christmas Eve pajamas,” Parker says, bouncing slightly as she watches him open the box.

Hardison comes over to stand next to Eliot and peer into the box as he opens it.

“It’s empty,” Eliot says, looking down into the box with confusion.

Besides him, Hardison chuckles.

“Exactly,” Parker says, sending Eliot and Hardison a saucy look and then waggling her eyebrows in an exaggerated motion.

“Heeey,” Hardison says, nudging Eliot with his elbow.

“No complaints from me,” Eliot says. “And what do you know, it’s after midnight on the 24th. Looks like it’s officially Christmas Eve.”

“Imagine that,” Hardison says, reaching out both his hands so each of his lovers can hold on as he leads them back towards the bedroom.

“Merry Christmas, boys,” Parker says as she and Eliot are tugged along.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

THE END


End file.
